In the beginning, there was jewelry, beading, sewing, home decor, painting, basket weaving, pottery, and cross-stitch. Coming from a family of crafters, creators, and artists, there was no escaping creativity in some form. Marry that to an entreprenuerial spirit, and well, at 9 years old a girl might be selling her wares at craft fairs as far as her parents and grandparents would drive her. After a stint in the Army as an Arabic Linguist, this mom-to-be picked up a mail order scrapbooking kit to document her daughter’s life. A friend took me to a Scrapbook Expo in 2003 where I was bit by the scrapbooking bug and I had it bad!
After traveling and teaching scrapbooking classes for 4 years, I started an etsy shop in 2007 to sell my excess supplies, class kits, and samples. Everyone had advice to share, including starting a blog, joining Facebook, and creating an online brand for “what I do”. As someone who was slow to embrace email and jump on the “interwebs” phenomenon, it was quite a leap for me to start muddling around online! Now I can’t imagine life without the internet.
While attending a scrapbooking event presented by Scrapbook Royalty (now Charity Wings), I carpooled with several other crafters to local hot spot, Pink Pineapple Scrapbooks. On the way to the shop, we joked about the then recent trend in quirky brand names… from Pink Pineapple to Pink Paislee to Label Tulip, it seemed everyone was smashing up random words and calling it a “brand.” As we tossed around silly, potential future business names, I blurted out “Hydrangea Hippo”. And the rest, is history!